life words | Nicole Macedo
EMBRACING ENGLISHNESS Snowy setbacks and health scares
A
Within the first five minutes of aimlessly s I move into my sixth month of As a supremely genetically cursed individwandering in desperate search of the university life, days are long and ual, I have struggled much of my life with unstructured. I read and I read severe short sightedness and other such emergency eye clinic, I established exactly and I drink more matcha green eyesight related deficiencies that only the fault of the NHS funds crisis; the place was not dissimilar to a luxury shopping tea lattes than my bank account feels at seem to get worse as I grow in age. On a mall. From top of the range hand dryers in ease with. I disembark very conventional trip to the opticians the toilets, to the expansive Marks & Spentube carriages and take last month, I passingly told my optomI established in all sorts of minute deetrist about a recent flickering light cer and WH Smith branches in the lobby, exactly the tails at every stop. I trace I’d started to notice appearing on my pe- and a room dedicated to Queen Victoria fault of the NHS ripheral vision. Unexpectedly, I was met memorabilia. This was a far cry from the pavement cracks and I funds crisis... faulty vending machine that had kept me peer at Evening Standard with the alarming response that I should endlessly entertained during the few trips headlines. I re-adjust my head to the eye doctor immediately, I’d made to A&E department of scarf and I curse my choice of footwear. I do not pass Go and do not collect rinse and I repeat. Occasionally though, I £200. Apparently, I was experiour friendly, local St. Bernard’s Growing Hospital. experience an entirely new facet of Lonencing the symptoms of the very up really just don life. Growing up in the South East, the scary sounding ‘retinal detachment’, means dealing sight of snow was a rare treat that usually an unfortunate ailment that quite with your Thundersnow just meant scuttling outside with my sister literally involves your retina dehorrible health to revel in the half a centimetre of crunchy, taching from your eye. If untreated, In all seriousness, my first NHS scares on your experience was faultless. After brown pavement ice. By some miracle of it is known to result in blindness. own. global warming, I recently found myself in With that, I Ubered myself to St. the expected long waiting time, the midst of a flurry of rain meets snow, Thomas, Westminster’s mammoth I was assured, by an expert beating down hard on the blackened footmedical institution with its charming view eye doctor, that my retina was very much path of night. First, let me retrace my steps of the Thames and Westminster Palace. I intact, and I was free to leave and find and give you a bit of backstory. didn’t know such colossal buildings existed. my way home, in spite of the eye drops 42
GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE MARCH 2017